The News Roundup For July 18, 2025

25:05It is a pillar of the right. It's a pillar of the MAGA belief system. And it's a pillar that's being shaken right now. Quickly, before we go to break, you mentioned that there were non-binding nods at resolutions to release the Epstein files that Republicans were forwarding. There's also an effort for a binding real vote, a discharge petition. A couple of Republicans, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene. What's going on? So there are about six Republicans who have signed their names onto this discharge petition, which is essentially an end run around House leaders that them combined with Democrats could force this more binding Epstein-related resolution to go to the floor.

25:48There is a process by which you can force a vote. You don't need Mike Johnson's permission to do it. Republicans are heading this up. We will see where it goes. And if you want to check it, it's called a discharge petition. You can look it up. More to come on the News Roundup in just a moment.

26:08Let's get back to the News Roundup now. And we have a sad note about a loss in the world of literature this week. Poet Andrea Gibson died Monday at 49 after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. Gibson, who led a resurgence in spoken word poetry and whose poems explore gender identity, politics, and living with terminal cancer, was also the poet laureate of Colorado. And remembrances from all over the world have filled social media this week. Here's a bit of their poem, Never Wait to Live. The kindest thing I ever did for myself was decide to never think this thought. As soon as the cancer goes away, I'll start my life.

26:47This is my life. I'm not waiting for anything to be different to live. Every day I lift weights heavier than my heart so I can say hello, my name is ready to whatever comes my way. Break my spirit and I'll have two spirits. Break my spirit again and I'll have four. Andrea Gibson there, the poet laureate of Colorado who died this week at age 49. Let's talk economy because you wouldn't know it from all of the other smoke that we've been talking about, but there was major economic news this week. We got data on the Consumer Price Index, one of the main indicators of inflation. The data for June showed prices were on average 2.7 percent higher than a year ago and up 0.3 percent from May.

27:34That's the biggest inflation jump since February. Prices for core goods rose as well by 0.2 percent. Now, core goods include items outside the more volatile categories like energy and food, where the prices tend to bounce around a lot. How should we read this latest inflation report, Megan? So this 2.7 % number, as you said, highest since February, still far lower than we were seeing two and three years ago at really the peak of inflation. So the White House took a bit of a victory lap on this and said, you know, numbers are still good. But really when you peel this back a little bit and you look at the prices on many imported goods, things like furniture, sports equipment, and appliances, those rose in June at the fastest rate in years.

28:22So that, to me, signals that more is to come here, particularly as we push up against this August 1st deadline for tariffs, which we could finally see the full effect of the tariffs. What's the connection there? Where's the pressure on inflation from tariffs? Why do you mention those two things together? Sure. Well, so the tariffs are going to increase the cost of imported goods. That's widely believed. We have not seen it as much just yet for the tariffs that have already gone into place, in part because some manufacturers are trying to shield consumers from price increases, at least in the short term.

29:05And we also saw manufacturers really do an influx of importing of goods. But as they sort of go through their inventories and they're needing to import goods once again, you're going to then see everything from the price of tech supplies to the price of toys go up as time goes on. Well, the tariffs from the president are voluminous. They are legion. They are often changing. Everything from a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports, 25 percent on automobiles, 10 % global tariffs for most countries. There's the tariff on China, one of our biggest trading partners' tariff on Chinese goods, was 145 % at one point.

29:48That's been lowered to 30 % during trade talks between the two countries, possible trade deals between the United States and other trading partners, letters going out. Naftali, what evidence is there, as Megan mentioned, that businesses aren't passing on the full cost of tariffs to consumers just yet? In other words, if there's going to be pain from tariffs, it's pain to come. Well, I mean, I think a lot of people, a lot of economists have been surprised there hasn't been more of an effect on inflation so far. And I think partly that's because there's a bit of a pipeline and it takes a little time for these things to manifest.

30:23I think partly it's because there's been so much uncertainty about the tariffs and that's prompted companies to try to hold the line for now. But I think the risk is that this is the beginning of a cascade and that as we see, you know, tariffs causing inflation, that causes the stock markets to drop. It causes consumers to be more and more upset, you know, and if these tariffs do go into effect on August 1st, you know, and they're not low, I mean, this could just start be the beginning of a spiral. I think one of the really interesting things is that we've seen President Trump go after Jerome Powell in a newly aggressive way in recent days.

30:58And there's been a lot of speculation about why. Is he trying to get him to quit? Is he going to fire him? You know, I think part of it, frankly, is that he's preparing a villain for all this. Early on, he was blaming inflation on Joe Biden. But now he's been in office for six months. That becomes harder. Should inflation persist, he's not going to say, yeah, my bad. He's going to look for somebody else that he can point to. And I think he's laying the groundwork potentially for that to be Jerome Powell. And I think that's what we're seeing right now as he browbeats Powell in an attempt to get him to lower interest rates.

31:27That's fascinating. That context of what to expect as Donald Trump singles out and vilifies Jerome Powell is the story to come. I mean, that's my guess. I mean, it's not something I know. No, you've been doing this for a minute. Looking at the landscape, it feels to me that's something that's potentially, yeah, in the offing. Alexis Naftali is right. The president has been hammering on Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. He has a short-term interest in that, lower interest rates, so the economy booms. I want the credit. That could, of course, lead to higher inflation, which is why the independent Fed chair doesn't want to do it.

31:58Donald Trump went up to the Hill this week to tell Republicans about how he was about to fire Jerome Powell, and they didn't like it too much. Now, Donald Trump seems to have backed off. What's going on? Well, remember, the Fed chair is not acting solely by himself, sitting at a desk in the Fed headquarters in Washington to say whether interest rates are going to be cut and wet. There is obviously a whole board of his dozen folks who sit around with their economic eggheads on and decide what they want to do with interest rates. But for a long period of time, President Trump has taken aim at the Fed and has wanted lower interest rates.

32:37Remember, Jerome Powell was appointed by Donald Trump in 2017. No, no, not according to Donald Trump. Donald Trump said – He denies this. Donald Trump said that Jerome Powell has done a lousy job and that he was surprised that President Biden appointed Powell and then reappointed him to the role. But Alexis, you're saying that's not true. It's a memory lapse. I just want to mention that the president did appoint Jerome Powell to be Fed chair, but he has had mixed feelings about it since. So can he push him out, as Natalie said? You know, obviously there's a great deal of pressure on the Fed chair.

33:12And he's talked about it on Capitol Hill. He's talked about it in speeches. DC's been asked ad nauseum about it by reporters. And he says, look, this is noise. I'm going to pay attention to what we all need to pay attention to, the independence of the Fed. And what we're concerned about is tariffs are ahead and we are going to see the pressure which could be inflationary in the United States. And we want to pause and wait for that. Donald Trump is saying, I don't want to wait. And he is arguing now with his, I guess, his supporters of the allies. Is there a way in the law to get rid of the Fed chair and put in his own person?

33:44and the law says you have to have cause. Let's talk about that. You have to have cause. You can't just fire the Fed chair because you don't like his policy on interest rates. You need cause, malfeasance, poor job performance, I suppose, malfeasance or corruption. So if you need cause, Megan, where is the president looking for cause? So enter the great drama over the renovation of the Fed headquarters, which has really - Like the actual building. Like the actual building. And this$2.5 billion project that, you know, to renovate these two historic buildings in Washington to bring them up to standards.

34:21This has become sort of the cause celeb for Trump and for others who want to push Powell out. So describing this as a gold-plated palace with, you know, expensive marble and granite. In fact, the Fed, in response, put up an FAQ page on their own website explaining the reasons for a lot of these increases in the costs, one being inflation, another being needing to blast proof the building and kind of gutting it in order to do so, an unexpected cost along the way. So, but this is... And here we are digging into the actual construction and the costs of a building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., when we all know that the issue is Donald Trump wants interest rates lowered and he wants them lowered now.

35:13And here we are talking about the building as though that's a thing. But he cannot fire Jerome Powell because they have a difference of opinions on interest rates. As you said, it has to be because of malfeasance, fraud, something like that. So he is trying to set this modernization of the Fed up to be that cause. And if he fails, as Naftali Ben David warns us so presciently, later, if inflation goes up and the president gets blamed, he will have a fall guy in the name of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Watch out for it. I want to talk about firings across the federal government and the Supreme Court's order this week that the Trump administration can fire more than a thousand workers at the Department of Education.

35:59Megan, Trump has promised to dismantle the Department of Education, these latest cuts will shrink education's workforce to about half its size before Trump's second term. What did the justices say the administration can actually do here? Well, this was an emergency order that was issued, and it was very short on detail. But essentially, it allowed for these firings to go forward. I believe there were about 1 ,300 of them. In addition to those 1 ,300 employees, then there's also others that were let go, you know, as part of the fork exercise earlier this year. So this – but this is an indication of an expansion of the president's powers.

36:40It is one of several of these such orders that we're seeing from the Supreme Court that, again, are short on detail but giving the president pretty wide authority to make these widespread government fires. I want to talk about that. In the last 10 weeks, this is according to Steve Vladek via The New York Times, the Supreme Court has granted emergency relief to the Trump administration without explanation seven times in the last 10 weeks. That's not your normal opinion where they do a legal justification and dissents and affirming opinions. No, Alexis, this is just, yep, you can do it. Goodbye, go.

37:15You have the authority. What's going on? Well, as Professor Vladek pointed out, there's a lot more. I think there's 15 emergency orders, half of them now with no rationale, no explanation at all. The Supreme Court has the authority and the power to do that. And there's lots of conjecture in the legal community, lots of interesting expertise being written about why they're doing this. But in this particular case, as Megan was saying, the one additional element I want to add is the Supreme Court has said that the president can go ahead and do this while the lower courts are trying to determine the legality.

37:50So in other words, the emergency orders are coming in before the case has worked its way up through the constitutionality and the law at the lower edge. And then the Supreme Court is saying, you can go ahead and do this. In other words, go ahead and burn down the house and then we'll send the fire department later if we need to. Right. I mean, it's that kind of thing. So that's why the legal community is very interested in this. One more story to check in on before we get to the reporter's notebook and what you're looking forward to in the days and weeks to come. And it's the president's health.

38:21The White House released a statement just this week announcing that Donald Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. This is after independent media on social media noticed in photographs of Donald Trump sitting at a soccer match that he had very swollen ankles. And something that's been noticed before, that he has bruises on the backs of his hands. Chronic venous insufficiency. Who wants to comment on – we're not doctors. But this is what the White House said was the diagnosis. What's interesting here to me is that nobody really mentioned this until independent media started commenting on the photos.

39:00And the White House felt compelled to say something. So what's interesting about this is that it describes the president getting a lot of tests. In other words, we didn't know he was having these tests or having a health issue. And then, obviously, as you say, we learn more about it. It's described by the White House as very common. There are some doctors who are clearly not his physicians who say it's common, and it's common at elderly people or, you know, he's 79. So the idea is you have vascular problems and you can't get the blood up to your heart. I have no information impugning the integrity of the White House physician at all.

39:34I do know that in the past Donald Trump has lied about his medical condition or issued statements like he's the most healthy person ever to run for the office. So as a source of disinformation, again, not impugning the reputation of the White House physician, I just remind people of the context of a report like this when it comes to the president's health. But that is the diagnosis from the White House physician. We have just a couple of minutes left. I want to get into your notebooks. A quick thought on the stories that you're watching for the days and weeks ahead. My thought is another tranche of Trump meme coins is out.

40:06According to Bloomberg, the president stands to gain$100 million in his personal wealth from this latest story. Megan, what about you? What's in your notebook? Two political stories in Texas that could determine the midterm elections. One, redistricting effort to add about five Republican seats in the state for the House. And then another is the brewing and bruising battle between Ken Paxton and John Cornyn for the GOP nomination for that Senate seat. Senate seat, a bruising primary, as you said, Ken Paxton at odds with his wife in public at the same time, untimely for him. Naftali, what about you?

40:44Well, we've talked understandably almost exclusively about Trump and the Republicans. I'm kind of interested in what the Democrats are doing and how they're looking for a leader. For example, President Obama speaks out sometimes. Some people think he should speak more. Some people should speak less. So I'm interested in how the opposition party is contorting itself to try to come up with a response in the Trump era. Alexis. So in the Senate next week, the Republican leader wants to set up a test case with a bipartisan piece of legislation appropriations bill that deals with military. And he wants to use that as a test case to see where the Republicans may be in their balking at this idea of cutting deals and whether they're going to, Democrats are going to really try to shut down the government in the fall.

41:26He's got a test case coming up next week. So you're talking about all of the controversy over rescissions, doge cuts, appropriations, we don't know what's in the bill, could lead Democrats to get mad enough that no 60 votes in a government shutdown happens. Oh joy, September, we'll be back here talking to you about the imminent potential shutdown. Politics is an ecosystem, kind of. It's an ugly one. I just say that to say everything is connected. Just like in life, everything is connected. And what I love when you guys come is that you get a sense of how every, I'm sorry for the ecosystem analogy, it's clumsy, but you guys understand the beating heart of this business.

42:06And you just like enlightened me. I've been doing this for too long to be enlightened and you just did it. I want to thank you. I want to thank Alexis Simendinger from the Hill, Megan Scully from Bloomberg and Naftali, Ben David from the Washington Post. Thanks to all of you. Well, we have much more news coming up in the international edition of the Roundup. That's right after this. Stay with us.

42:31Now, let's dive into all the global headlines from this week in the international edition of the News Roundup, including Israel's intensifying attacks on another front in Syria, while Vladimir Putin remains unfazed. And hunger continues to stalk Gaza. Joining me today, Elizabeth Hagedorn, a State Department correspondent at Al Monitor. Welcome back, Elizabeth. Thanks for having me. Great to see you in studio. Two familiar voices back on 1A, Jack Detch is defense reporter at Politico and a familiar voice. Hi, Jack. Good to be here, Todd. And someone who I would argue is the most familiar voice of them all on the Roundup, David Rennie joins us from London.

43:10He's a geopolitics editor and columnist at The Economist. He writes their column, The Telegram. Hello, David. Hello. Yes, it is familiar. I was right. All right. Let's start in Gaza, folks, where more deaths have been reported at an aid distribution site run by the United States and Israel. The U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, otherwise known as GHF. On Wednesday, at least two dozen people were killed in a crowd stampede that killed dozens, as I said. The GHF blamed agitators in the crowd. They say were connected to Hamas. One man in the crowd, west of Khan Yunus, spoke to Al Jazeera about what happened.

43:53We were running like everyone else. We got to the gate and realized that it was closed. Thousands of people were there. The Americans fired tear gas into the crowd to disperse them, which caused a stampede, and many people died while being crushed by the crowd. The day before this incident, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said more than 674 Palestinians had been killed near GHF sites as of July 13th. This latest incident comes after GHF announced a change in distribution using what they call a flag system, but experts in humanitarian aid programs with the help of witness testimony and visual evidence have said that the project's flawed design draws enormous crowds in close proximity to armed troops.

44:38And that's where I want to begin, Jack Dutch. These GHF sites have come under repeated scrutiny and criticism. Why do they continue to be used to distribute aid when we have reports every week of more and more deaths at the aid sites? Well, when you talk to the Israelis, there's no other option by their standards. They've shut out the UN-led aid pathways. They've insisted on something that looks a little bit more like a military or contractor presence. So you see this solution, but it's not been a solution by all accounts, and you reference them, Todd. It's been absolute chaos. You've seen basically these death traps set up with Palestinians trying to get in, being crushed by crowds, facing stun grenades, live ammunition.

45:20And this isn't helping the situation with the potential of a famine in Gaza, right? A hundred percent of the Strip facing acute levels of hunger, and it seems to be getting worse. We're going to talk about the spreading hunger in Gaza. Israel also says that distributing food, Jack, in a, I hate to call it normal, but in a standard way, isn't an option because Hamas steals it, puts it on the black market, uses it for war and terrorism. That's a separate question as to how the sites are managed. But what about that dynamic in Israel's explanation? Yeah, Israel has repeatedly insisted this, and this has been the problem is they can't sort of be moved on this issue.

45:59The Arab governments haven't had any luck on this. The United Nations hasn't had any luck on this. And this is going to influence the negotiations that we're talking about later, just when it comes to the day-after plan for Gaza. It seems like Israel wants a very militarized option. The humanitarian groups say otherwise. The UN said this week, Jack just mentioned it, one in ten children screened at the United Nations Relief and Work Agency's medical facilities is malnourished. David, how bad is the hunger situation across the Gaza Strip right now? it's terrible and it's not just food it's also clean water i mean you know it's unimaginable how long the people of gaza have gone without clean food in fact one of our reporters saw uh the uh the place where they had the violence uh this week he went actually the israeli military invited our reporter to go to an observation post overlooking uh the work of this uh center and they saw you know initially the american mercenaries handing out cardboard boxes with flour pasta oil for a kind of one box per family per week.

47:00But then the chaos, even in the few minutes that our reporter was there, there was immediately chaos because some women were ushered to the front of the queue and then that caused a massive stampede and then there was tear gas grenades. So even on an official Israeli military visit to see how well the scheme was working, it was not working in any kind of way. And of course, as Jack says, for the Israelis, the argument is that, you know, we're wrong to be talking about hunger and the civilians in Gaza. we should be focusing on the need to eradicate Hamas, that until Hamas has absolutely no leverage in Gaza, Israel has to continue these operations.

47:35And so essentially the population of Gaza has been held in a sort of siege. They are hostages in this standoff between the Israeli military and Hamas, even though, again, our reporting is that Israeli generals have told the government, Benjamin Netanyahu's government, that there are essentially no more military assets and targets in the Gaza Strip, that they are kind of just now fighting over rubble while there's been occasionally attacked. And former officials, including prime ministers like Ehud Olmert, have said mostly the same thing in the press and in editorials in Israel. Elizabeth, what's your read on food distribution, hunger in Gaza, Israel's justification?

48:15And just so this is a grinding, ongoing story. We talk about versions of this most weeks. Exactly. I mean, you had the death of these 20 Palestinians. Most of them trampled to death this week. And like we've seen in the past, there have been conflicting narratives as to what led to this tragedy. GHF blamed Hamas elements in the crowd. Witnesses say there was a shooting by Israeli troops. But whatever the cause, I think this incident again highlights just how dangerous it is at these GHF-run sites where Palestinians are forced to travel many miles to receive aid in highly crowded and militarized locations.

48:52And as Jack mentioned, this is part of what's held up the ceasefire talks, this disagreement over aid. Well, let's talk about the ceasefire talks. They have intensified this week. On Monday, President Trump talked on the phone with the Emir of Qatar. On Wednesday, President Trump hosted the prime minister of Qatar for a private dinner. That Gulf nation has played a leading role in talks so far. Now, the United States is promoting a plan. This isn't new. Centered on a 60-day ceasefire, phased hostage releases for surviving hostages. Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza renewed diplomatic efforts for a longer-term ceasefire.

49:26Elizabeth, what's the readout on that meeting in Qatar? How did talks between the leaders go this week? Well, we know that a 60-day ceasefire topped the agenda during President Trump's dinner with the Qatari prime minister, Qatari, of course, being one of the main mediators in the talks. You know, despite some optimism from the Trump administration in recent weeks, my read of the situation is it does not appear that Israel and Hamas are on the cusp of a deal that would halt the fighting and bring some of the hostages home. There are still a lot of sticking points to be hashed out, including how far Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza during the truce, whether the GHF or the UN will be responsible for distributing aid.

50:08And then the other big unresolved issue, and this has been an issue from the start, is Hamas's demand for a complete end to the war, which is a non-starter for the right-wing coalition partners of Netanyahu's who've threatened to quit the government over this. Jack, they say the war will never be ended while Hamas has the ability to survive. Like this war only ends with Hamas's eradication. Yeah, but the challenge for the Israelis, right, is they're short on manpower. They've used up a lot of energy, as David hinted at. And you just have a situation now where you'd be facing another long-term occupation of the Gaza Strip.

50:43You'd be boxing in a lot of the population and you'd have long-term protests from humanitarian groups. So you just see the Israelis increasingly isolated. And this week, of course, hitting a Catholic church in Gaza, getting condemnation from the Italian prime minister, Georgia Maloney. That certainly seems like a step in the direction from European allies of condemnation of Israel. The very Catholic church that we heard during the life of Pope Francis that he used to call to check in every single day, right? The very same church. Right. The Israelis hit and they said they regret stray fire, but they hit it nonetheless.

51:14And we saw condemnation from Pope Leo as well. Now, the GHF's current aid distribution plan is similar to a plan published back in December 2024 by Israeli Defense and Security Forum. I'm tying it back to the GHF here because that plan also called for the creation of tent cities for internally displaced people described as, quote, humanitarian zones. Now, earlier this month, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested a similar plan for Palestinian internally displaced people, or IDPs, and then the eventual takeover of the Gaza Strip by Israel. Now, I mentioned Ehud Olmer, former prime minister of Israel, just a couple of minutes ago.

51:55He's also been commenting on this proposed creation of what's called humanitarian zones. Here's the former prime minister. This is how the international community will understand these camps to be. They will not, they don't need me to interpret them what it is when they are doing it. And those who are in charge of doing it are the ones that say that we should actually get rid of all the Palestinians living in Gaza and that all of them are Hamas and therefore they have no right to exist. Elizabeth, the former prime minister, this is how the world will understand these 10 cities to be. He's talking about concentration camps.

52:37That was the language. What about this concern from within Israel and the criticism from the former prime minister? Well, keep in mind that for almost two years now, Netanyahu has resisted domestic pressure over his handling of the war and his inability to secure the hostages release. And so this widespread condemnation we're seeing in Israel, I don't think Netanyahu will be very much influenced by. And Omer has very little political sway in Israel right now. You mentioned right-wing Israeli politicians threatening to leave the coalition, though. Sure. I mean, the prime minister is far more beholden to them as he needs their support to stay in power.

53:16They are way more hard line on Gaza than many in Israel's mainstream. I want to stay with Israel and Gaza for a few minutes more because there's so much news coming out of the region. This week at a meeting in Brussels, the European Union's 27 foreign ministers decided not to, quote, punish Israel for its actions in Gaza with sanctions and instead to keep a close watch on how Israel is improving the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip. In a post on ex-Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar applauded that decision. David, how would you describe the EU's relationship with Israel and this latest decision?

53:55So I think the fact that, as you say, the European Union foreign ministers did not impose these sanctions on Israel is not a sign that mainstream European opinion has any sympathy for the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu's government. I mean, you can look at any opinion poll. You can watch any kind of TV broadcast across the whole of Europe. People are extremely, the vast majority of people in Europe are very upset with how the Israeli government is handling the crisis in Gaza. So if these sanctions were not imposed, it was because of EU divisions. And Israel has every right to crow about a diplomatic success because they used their allies inside the European Union.

54:29And that's a really interesting mix back. You have countries like the Czechs and the Hungarians who are basically in part because of their relationship with Trump and America, very close allies of the Israelis. And that goes back some way. You then have countries like Germany who are just so absolutely committed to the survival of Israel and the security of Israel because of the legacy of the Holocaust and German crimes against the Jews during World War II, that the German government has declared explicitly that defending Israel almost come what may is a kind of Staatsrasen, this kind of reason of state.

55:03It's kind of the ultimate national interest. but that is clearly coming under tremendous strain and you're seeing even pretty supportive countries like my own here in London, Britain. We put sanctions, the British government put sanctions on two far-right ministers in the Israeli government and there are lots of pressure, not just to get more aid into Gaza, which is a very big demand of the Europeans and the excuse given for not sanctioning Israel was that there was signs of progress on the aid but also this very important issue of Israel collecting customs revenue for Palestinian territories for goods that go into Palestinian territories through Israel.

55:38And those customs unions, not at the moment, being passed on to the Palestinian Authority that runs the West Bank. And so they can't pay their civil servants. They can't pay for their government services. And that is a scheme essentially being pushed by hard-right members of the Israeli coalition government to starve the PA of resources. And that's also a major issue for Europe. I spent a little bit of time in Europe recently. I can confirm what David says on the streets around different places I went. European opinion is unambiguous and pro-Palestinian and to an extent anti-Israel to a large extent.

56:16Both of those things, you see it everywhere. It's unambiguous despite the actions of leaders and foreign ministers across the EU. So thanks for that insight, David. Meanwhile, back in Israel, you mentioned this just a moment ago, Elizabeth, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition suffered a blow. We just talked about this in brief. Two ultra-Orthodox parties left his right-wing coalition government. The departures are due to go into effect on Sunday. It's not clear whether the departures would leave Netanyahu with a minority in government. Jack, why do these parties say they're leaving the government?

56:52Is it over Gaza? Is it over West Bank settlements? What's the route? Are they willing to risk Netanyahu's government here? Well, it's simple. They say that Netanyahu's not doing enough to protect yeshiva students. So those are students that study rabbinical literature, Jewish philosophy, from mandatory military service in the IDF under new draft laws that Netanyahu's proposed. This has been controversial in Israel for a long time, that yeshiva students, unlike everyone else, don't serve. Right. And you see a broad majority of the public, especially a year and a half on from October 7th, saying that these exemptions should be ended for ultra-Orthodox people like yeshiva students.

57:29But there's just so much pressure on Israel's military. You see the national military reserves being significantly stretched. Now this is translating into pressure on Netanyahu. As you said, UTJ leaving his coalition takes him down from 64 to 60 seats in the Knesset out of 120. If he loses Shas and that's confirmed on Sunday, that's down to 50 seats. So that's insufficient for majority. He's really at risk of early elections or potentially having his coalition dissolve. Elizabeth, talk just a little bit more about the exit of these ultra-Orthodox parties and the political challenge that it presents to Netanyahu.

58:05Well, I think these defections from Netanyahu's government could have implications for Gaza, even though that was not the reason they cited for their defections. Netanyahu, you could imagine, feeling even more pressured now to appease the remaining right-wing factions, voices like Finance Minister Smotrich and National Security Minister Ben-Gavir, who have threatened that they too will quit, not over the military draft legislation, but over a potential ceasefire with Hamas if it stops short of ensuring the militant group's full defeat. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, under pressure across the Israeli politic, that he's extending the war in Gaza, or at least doesn't have an exit plan because it means potentially the end of his own political fortunes and a trial for corruptions and basically prolonging the war for politics.

58:53So all sides for Benjamin Netanyahu right now. Relatedly, I want to talk about Syria for a moment. On Wednesday, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Israel's capital, Damascus, hitting the defense ministry headquarters in an area near the presidential palace there. The country's health ministry said the strikes in Damascus killed three people, wounded 30. Israel's military said it was intervening to defend the minority Druze sect in southern Syria, whose community straddles the border with Israel-occupied Golan Heights, right on the border between Israel and Syria. David, let's backtrack a little bit.

59:30Who are the Druze, and why does Israel say they're essentially going to war with Damascus to defend them. So the Druze were founded as an offshoot essentially of Shia Islam. So they're broadly part of Shiite Islam, but they actually have elements of other religions. They're an extremely closed group. There's about a million of them spread across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and a few, as you say, in Israel, actually more than a few. They're actually so secretive about their rights that outsiders are not allowed to know about some of their devotional practices. Why this suddenly becomes a issue of modern-day geopolitics is that there are about 150 ,000 Druze in Israel, and quite a lot of them serve in the Israeli military.

1:00:16So to go back to the point that ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israeli kids refuse to serve in the military, Druze kids have been serving in the military, and they are fiercely loyal. Because as a very small group that has been persecuted and distrusted in almost every corner of the Middle East where they have settled since they were founded in the 11th century in Egypt, they have often needed a protector because they often are very, very wary of their immediate neighbours. And that is ultimately the dynamic here in Syria, that as we wait to see whether the new government post-Assad, post the revolution in Syria, keeps its promises to be tolerant of minorities, to be tolerant particularly of Shia Islamists and Muslims and not just impose a Sunni majority view on Syria, Israel sees a chance to present itself as a defender of minority rights in Syria.

1:01:07But it's also about the fact that this territory where they are, where there's currently this sectarian violence, very nasty sectarian violence, is right near the border with Israel. So this is also a security play for Israel. But it is a very, very perilous moment for the new Syrian government because to have Israeli strikes on the Ministry of Defence in the middle of the capital, Damascus, to have Israel intervening in this way, ostensibly a name of defending the Druze, that is an incredibly destabilising event. And the evidence at the moment is that the Syrian government is not handling it well.

1:01:42Ahmad al-Shara is not keeping his promises to respect minority rights. And there is evidence, troubling evidence, that some of his own fighters were involved in some very nasty sectarian killings this week. Well, let's talk more about that and the pressures on the new president, former terrorist leader in Syria. On Friday, as David mentioned, fighting resumed between the Druze and other tribal groups in southern Syria. Now, since the Islamist HTF group toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power in December, the country's new leader is President Ahmed al-Shara. David just mentioned him.

1:02:16Struggling to consolidate, control, and end sectarian violence, Jack. Attacks by various Sunni Muslim groups against minorities in the countries, especially in the south, have been widespread. So as we've been talking about, Jack, in addition to protecting the Druze, Israel said that airstrikes were meant to push Islamic militants from the border that it shares with Syria. And right there, you can see potentially the destabilizing effect that David just mentioned and the tension on the new president of Syria. What's been the response from President al-Shara to these attacks in this dynamic? Well, he said that Israel's trying to turn Syria into an arena of endless chaos and dismantle the unity of the Syrian people, a unity, of course, which is deeply in question given these sectarian attacks.

1:03:05And it's interesting, right, because the geopolitics are fascinating here. Shira has been quite muted on Israel since Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December. There was a sense he might be open to bringing the Israelis back in from the cold. But you see the Israelis, again, with a very expansive view of their security, particularly after October 7th. They want to rewrite the security construct in the region. And so this has almost taken the mowing the grass approach that we've seen for years and years and years in the Gaza Strip and applying it to Syria. Now, Israel's done this for a long time, right?

1:03:37Over the course of the civil war, they've used sort of the porous borders in Syria to launch attacks on Iranians, to launch attacks on Hezbollah proxies. But Shara seems to be saying, look, you need me for a regional peace deal. You need me to bring you in from the cold. That's not going to fly here. And Shara has been, in a sense, taking it easy on Israel up until now, Elizabeth, at least rhetorically, right? Israel and Syria have been in talks back channel, like around the corner from all this violence. They've been in talks over a potential diplomatic solution for the Golan Heights, which has been in violent dispute between Syria and Israel since the Syrian invasion down through the Golan Heights 1967.

1:04:19Correct me if I'm wrong. So where does the latest violence leave those back-channel talks in what looks like an attempted normalization by at least some people? Right. I mean, this week's violence has undoubtedly set back. the Trump administration's efforts to, if not strike a normalization deal between Israel and Syria to resolve at the very least their border dispute. I think the intervention by Israel, including its airstrikes in Damascus, has put Shara in an extraordinarily difficult position at a time, as you mentioned, when he's already struggling to consolidate control over some of the more extreme factions in Syria, while also placating the West, whose support he needs to rebuild the country.

1:05:06So he's walking a fine line. He cannot rock the boat. And I think, you know, you had these back channel talks that were aimed at reaching some sort of non-aggression pact. It's hard to imagine how the events of this week have not set those efforts back. Donald Trump wants to preside over a new peace in Israel, of course, and sees potential. Look, he granted a relief of sanctions to Syria after decades and decades, Elizabeth. It's clear that Trump wants al-Shara to be able to normalize with Israel, easier said than done. What has the Trump administration said or what's been their response to the latest Israeli attacks in Damascus and elsewhere?

1:05:48Well, in contrast to Israel's bombing campaigns elsewhere in the region, you have the Trump administration saying flatly yesterday that the United States does not support Israel's strikes in Syria. Since December, Israel has been carrying out hundreds of strikes in Syria, which it says are aimed at keeping the border region demilitarized. But this week was a major escalation. Does the U.S. not support them or is it good cop, bad cop? I'm sorry for asking you to speculate, but you have to wonder. Yeah, I mean, to your point, I think President Trump has put a lot of stock in a successful transition in Syria.

1:06:21He met with its leader, Shara. He lifted sanctions. And these strikes and the violence in Syria's south has certainly put the administration's efforts to stabilize Syria at serious risk. Let's put the Middle East aside for the moment. We will be back on it next week, I am quite sure, and move to Ukraine, another spot that we talk about every week here on the International Roundup. On Monday, Donald Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a 50-day deadline to end the war in Ukraine. Here's the president speaking about President Putin on Monday. We're very, very unhappy with him, and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days.

1:07:03Tariffs at about 100 percent. You'd call them secondary tariffs. You know what that means. But today we're going to talk about something else. And as you know, we've spent$350 billion approximately on this war with Russia and Ukraine. I would like to see it end. It wasn't my war. It was Biden's war. It's not my war. I'm trying to get you out of it. The United States has not spent$350 billion on aid for the war in Ukraine. It's a grossly inflated number and has been since the election. but Russia did intensify its air attacks on Ukraine and is gathering troops at its front lines. David, 50 days of the deadline Mr.

1:07:46Trump gives to Mr. Putin. How does this new timeline open a door for Russia to ramp up the summer offensive? So it's a very painful question for Ukraine. Obviously, Ukraine is now more than three years into this war and is, as the country with the smaller population, has been really struggling to man its front lines. And although we read all these kind of stories about incredibly modern high-tech drone warfare, but being used by the two sides, there is still a lot of sort of grinding, frankly, kind of similar to World War I style trench warfare, horrendous fighting. And there is a real fear, as you say, that Russia is massing its larger forces.

1:08:24It has a larger army, can conscript more people, can pay them quite a lot of money to join the Russian army. And there has been a fear of a Russian summer offensive because, you know, the land dries out. It's easier to move things like tanks across the land in summer. Actually, the reporting of my colleagues in Ukraine at the moment is that there isn't clear evidence of a summer offensive right now. And I think the next 50 days is going to be clearly about what happens on the ground in Ukraine, but also very much seeing whether this new tough line from Donald Trump lasts more than kind of a single news cycle.

1:08:57and obviously news cycles at the moment have measured in sort of nanoseconds or whatever we're up to now in Washington. The core of the deal, though, is quite interesting because you can see that what's happened is that figures like, for example, the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutter and other friends of Ukraine's cause, including some Republican politicians close to Donald Trump, people like Senator Lindsey Graham, they've tried to work out what would be the most Trump-friendly way of continuing to get weapons to Ukraine. And the deal they've done is to basically say Europe will give their weapons and then America will eventually sell Europe weapons to fill those warehouses up in the future.

1:09:31Jack, in recent weeks, we've seen what appears to be a change in attitude and a change of heart from Donald Trump. I'm turning decidedly against Vladimir Putin, fed up with his bombings, saying that he would support sanctions that might be coming from the Senate, even though the Senate has now backed off of sanctions. Now that Donald Trump is sufficiently pro Putin, anti Putin, pardon me, I guess, after many years of being pro Putin. has anything really changed here what's changed from the president and why now it's not a fundamental change but trump wants to be the guy signing the deal in the rose garden and he's not closer to that and that's because of course of these these massive russian strikes and bombardments that we've seen 3 000 drones 117 missiles in may and the numbers have just gone up and up 5 000 drones and 240 missiles in June on Ukraine.

1:10:24Does this mean the U.S. and Donald Trump are now a friend of Ukraine? No, it's not quite a friendship. And I wouldn't even say sort of a bonhomie. I mean, it seems like the administration's not fans behind the scenes of Andrei Yermak. That's Zelensky's key operator. They're not fans of Zelensky himself. Ukraine, of course, has undergone a major cabinet shuffle seemingly to try and placate Donald Trump. But one thing that the Ukrainians do have is a very effective advocate in Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruta. And this has been fascinating to watch because he's sort of been playing this long game with Trump.

1:10:58And Mark Ruta is actually a friend of Robert Caro, who writes the LBJ biographies. This is kind of funny. It seems like he's been brushing up on his Robert Caro because if you look at the way he handles Trump, it's this flattery buttering him up and then leading him to what he really wants, the U.S. to sell weapons to Europe for Ukraine. Let's hear from Mark Ruta himself. All 32 have committed to this 5 % and to the target. And this is, I think, one of the biggest foreign policy successes of President Trump. And it also means that NATO is reinvigorated because it is fair. We spend the same as the Americans are spending on the European side.

1:11:30And we need it to keep ourselves safe from Russia. This is NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda after his visit to the Oval Office. Jack, you just mentioned it. That's Mark Ruda speaking to Fox News, which is where you go if you want to make sure the president sees you. saying wonderful things about him and flattering his policy of getting European countries to spend more of their defense budgets to support NATO. So that seems to be example number one of what you're talking about. Yeah. And then the big example, right, is Trump's major U-turn on these Patriot missiles to Ukraine. So it seems like the U.S.

1:12:05is now going to sell the Europeans$10 billion, or sorry, rather the Europeans going to buy$10 billion worth of these Patriot missiles that will go to Ukraine. So you're talking about missiles that can intercept a lot of these drones, missiles that have been flying over Ukraine for the last few months. Ukraine's been pretty helpless to defend against these attacks. The Ukrainians have six batteries. This will bring them to about eight or nine with three more batteries. Could be a long time in the pipeline, but certainly helps them. And this is a major reversal from Trump from what we've seen. Now, on Tuesday, Ukraine's prime minister announced his resignation.

1:12:40It's the beginning of what's expected to be a big shakeup in the government of President Zelensky, biggest shakeup since Russia's full-scale invasion more than three years ago. David, what do you make of the timing of this announcement within the government of Ukraine? So there's a kind of positive and a more scary case to be made. So the positive case is that, you know, Ukraine has not been able to hold elections because it's under martial law, and until the martial law is ended and the war is ended, they won't have new elections. And so there is a sort of benign case that reshuffling the cabinet does answer some of the concerns about government mismanagement and corruption in the system.

1:13:19The more sinister case is that, in fact, there is a swing towards quite a nasty authoritarian tendency with power very, very centralized around not just President Zelensky, but also, as Jack mentioned, his extremely powerful chief of staff, Andrew Yermak, who is not trusted, not liked by the Americans or many Western governments. And so the new prime minister who has been put in place, Yulia Svyridenko, she is basically seen as 100 % the kind of creature of this powerful chief of staff, Yermak. And so that really worries people. We've also seen some quite powerful anti-corruption campaigners arrested for allegedly dodging the draft by not joining the military.

1:14:00And it looks pretty murky. And so there's a real concern that Zelensky has been such a heroic and important figure for Ukraine externally, and that will clearly continue domestically he's showing an increasingly intolerant and iron fist. And so there's a lot of worry about the unfinished and not particularly savory business of Ukrainian politics going on alongside the war. Are there any U.S. demands driving this? Elizabeth, do you want to weigh in? Or if not, David can. Jack ahead. Are the U.S. demands driving the shakeup in the Ukrainian government? Well, you remember there was a major controversy just ahead of the election between House Republicans and the Ukrainians.

1:14:35Of course, Zelensky and Oksana Markarova, who's still the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, went to the Scranton munitions plant where a lot of the 155 artillery ammunition is being produced. Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, of course, who was under consideration as a VP nominee for Kamala Harris, came. So there was a lot of protest from Republicans about that, that this was Zelensky and Markarova playing in politics. So it does get Markarova out of the way. He was a figure in that sort of controversy and bluster with the Republicans. All right. We will leave Ukraine and Russia there for a week, like with Israel and Gaza.

1:15:12I promise, I can nearly promise we will return to it by next week, if not before, here on 1A. I want to switch gears to some global economic news. 30 % tariffs on the European Union are due to kick back in in August. In fact, August 1st, the EU's chief trade negotiator is in Washington for talks with his U.S. counterpart. part. Elizabeth, what's come of these negotiations so far as EU faces 30 percent? That's right. The U.S. and EU are trying to avert a what could be a full blown transatlantic trade confrontation. The EU warning that its trade with the U.S. could effectively be wiped out if Trump moves forward with these threatened tariffs.

1:15:54The EU was hoping to secure a stopgap deal that would set the tariffs at 10 percent with carve-outs for sectors like auto and critical technology. And as you mentioned this week, the EU's lead negotiator arrived in Washington for these talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and others. Trump has indicated that he'll drop the high tariff rate if the EU decides to build or manufacture with the U.S. But if these trade talks fail, the European Commission is reportedly preparing to target more than$83 billion worth of U.S. goods, everything from Boeing aircraft to bourbon whiskey. And if I'm doing the math right, there are exactly two weeks to go until Trump's August 1st.

1:16:37Those are the retaliatory tariffs, right, when you hear that term. That's right. David, the demonstrated history with President Trump getting another trade entity to do a deal with him is there has to be something on the table for Trump. He is transactional in these cases. Sometimes it's his personal wealth, but oftentimes it's just a transactional win for him politically. Aside from the threat of retaliatory tariffs, what does the EU have to offer Donald Trump to get a deal? Well, the problem that Europe faces is that Donald Trump really hates the European Union. He likes some individual European countries, but he, you know, what does he dislike?

1:17:15He dislikes them for being essentially kind of squishy, woke, progressive, kind of quasi-democrat. He doesn't like multilateral bodies. And so it is hard for Europe because some of the demands that Donald Trump is making, they're actually beyond the kind of symbolic stuff. He actually wants them to, for example, one of the largest EU exports to the US is things like Botox. An awful lot of essentially American drugs and medical things are made in Europe, particularly in countries like Ireland, because there are tax rates, very low tax rates. Donald Trump dislikes that. He wants the whole pharmaceutical global sector to be reshaped.

1:17:51That would be incredibly painful for Europe. There are demands to change the way that Europe has its own internal taxation system. We have a sales tax in Europe, which he thinks is discriminatory. He's not actually right on that, on the economics. So the problem is you're quite right that he often has these kind of symbolic demands. And so he's certainly very cross if Europe returned to, in the past, Europe has tariffed things like Harley Davidson's and Jack Daniel's. Very American. You're mentioning the most American things I can think of. Exactly. Go after the icons. Europe has currently suspended those.

1:18:22But the problem is that actually there's some real disputes here. These are very, very large trade flows. You know, it's$976 billion of two-way trade between the US and the EU. That's like$3 billion a day. It's the largest single trade partner America has. And he has demands that Europe can't afford to accept because they are just too big and in many cases unfair. So this could get really, really ugly. And there are some very large American companies like Google, like Meta, who collect a lot of revenue from advertising in Europe. Europe has never gone after them, but it could. There is rumbling in Brussels about, well, you know, we have anti-coercion instruments that if we felt we were being bullied, We could go after the advertising revenues from things like Google and Meta, but that gets nuclear because then you're going after absolutely enormous American tech companies with Donald Trump's ear.

1:19:12Elizabeth, Donald Trump got the name Taco. He got it from Wall Street. Taco stands for Trump always chickens out. That's just the name they gave him. Get on the brink of a promised escalated tariff, and then he backs down at the last minute. And they all benefit from the stock market impact of this dynamic. That's why they came up with that name. What's the likelihood that Trump will follow through on these threatened tariffs August 1st, this time with the EU? Well, as you mentioned, Trump has repeatedly set deadlines in his global trade war only to walk them back at the last minute. This time he's insisting he won't extend this August 1st deadline for the tariffs to go into effect, giving countries additional time to negotiate.

1:19:54But the original 90-day pause was set to expire this month before Trump announced the latest delay. To answer your question, there is, of course, a chance he could delay or soften the tariffs. But on the other hand, you could imagine a doubling down after all the attention and mockery that's been made of his taco tendencies. A quick question, David, from your perspective. Lots of politics, pressure from Donald Trump on Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, demanding that he lower interest rates, threatening to fire him, threatening the independence of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States and on and on.

1:20:29What about the ripple effects through the global economy? How is the EU watching this? Are they actually worried about a destabilizing effect if Trump follows through or indeed threatens the independence of the Fed? Yeah, and there's a real reason why, which is that America is such an absolutely enormous economy that the interest rates set by the Federal Reserve affect interest rates around the whole world. And that is an incredibly powerful force that the American dollar has. And there is a clear understanding that when Donald Trump goes after President Powell at the Fed, it's not because he doesn't like him as a person.

1:21:04I mean, he calls him an idiot and all those awful things. It's because Donald Trump wants lower interest rates and he wants a weaker dollar to make American exports cheapen up. You can't probably have both lower interest rates and a weaker dollar. That's bad economics. But nonetheless, there is a real sense that the dollar, which is the reserve currency, for all that makes other countries grumble, it remains by far the most important reserve currency. There is a sense that it is not being run in a predictable and stable way. And that sends just absolute shockwaves around every other economy. All right, we're going to go to a reporter's notebook, Get inside each of your notebooks and what you're watching for in the next week in just a moment.

1:21:43But first, I want to stay in Europe for a little bit more news. This one's important. David probably has thoughts, although I'm not going to ask him to comment. On swan news out of England, the annual five-day census of the swans belonging to King Charles III. It's known as the Swan Upping, and it began on Monday on the River Thames. Now, this inspection is done to assess the health of the swans as an indication of what's going on with swans all around the UK. While swans are legally protected from hunting, they face threats from disease, pollution, vandalism, and cruelty from humans. Now, here's one fun fact.

1:22:18One of King Charles' lesser-known titles is Senior of the Swans or Lord of the Swans. David, did you know that? I did know that. I can also say that having rode on the River Thames as a schoolboy, they are magnificent. They are endangered. we should cherish them, but they are violent brutes and they can break your arm with their wings. So avoid them. Do avoid them. These particular swans are mute. These are swans that don't honk. And King Charles is in charge of the swans. So that's happening. Reporter's notebook, everybody. We have just a quick thought from each of you with the time that we have.

1:22:51What's in your notebook? Tell us about a story that's on your radar in a couple sentences, if you please, David. I am looking at the dangerous signs that we're in a world of nuclear proliferation, all the other countries around the world that are looking to get nuclear weapons. That's what I'm working on. Not just Iran, but others as well. South Korea, you know, you name it, Poland, Japan, lots of countries thinking about it. Look out for that from David Rennie in the pages of The Economist. Elizabeth, how about you? Well, I'll be watching the aftermath of the death of this 20-year-old Palestinian-American, Saif Musalat, who was killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the latest American citizen to die at the hands of settlers or soldiers.

1:23:28The Trump administration is pressing Israel to investigate. Moussaal's relatives want the U.S. to launch its own inquiry. So I'll be watching to see whether there are efforts in either country to provide accountability and take action against what's been a growing wave of settler violence. And this particular death of a Palestinian has gotten more attention here because he happens to be a citizen of the United States. There have been many others. Exactly. There have been about half a dozen since October 7th. Jack, how about you? Well, I'll be watching kiss cams at Coldplay concerts to see who's naughty or nice.

1:23:57But after that, I'll be looking at Andreas Kubelius' trip to the United States. He's European Union Defense Industry Chief. He's going to be asking questions of the Trump administration about these troop reductions in Europe. I want to know that too. I do. I want to know that. I want to know everything you have to say about kiss cams. Check that box for the next time Jack Detch is on the air. Big thanks to our panelists today for all of their analysis and their insights. Elizabeth Hagedorn, State Department Correspondent at Al Monitor. Jack Detch, defense reporter at Politico. And David Rennie, geopolitics editor, swan hater, columnist at The Economist, where he writes his column, The Telegram.

1:24:35Thank you all so much for your time. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Botee is our senior supervising producer. Amanda Williams is our special projects editor. Aline Humphreys is the editor and producer of 1A On Demand, and Barb Anguiano produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional podcast and on-demand support all this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. We'll talk more soon. This is 1A.

1:25:17Thank you.